Abbas: We won't agree to temporary state

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said
Thursday that Fatah would oppose any plan to form a Palestinian state with temporary borders.

In a press conference held in the West Bank city of Ramallah following the end of the Fatah Congress in Bethlehem, Abbas said that the movement will adhere to former Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's legacy.

Fatah Congress

Qureia hints Fatah elections unclean / Ali Waked

Former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmad Qureia, who lost in elections to leading movement's Central Committee, says, 'forgeries in Iranian elections were much smaller than this'; files unofficial complaint of external intervention in election process

"Let me emphasize: Fatah categorically rejects the attempt to form a transient Palestinian state," he told reporters. Abbas added that in order of the Israeli-Palestinian
peace process to reignite, both sides must honor their commitment to the Road Map.

The first step, he said, was a halt of all settlement expansion by Israel. Releasing all of the Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, he added, "Is a test to the earnestness of the peace process."

Abbas then reiterated his Bethlehem congress' statement saying that the Palestinians "reserve the right to mount the legitimate resistance, guaranteed by the international law to a people fighting occupation and striving for independents.

"We will not alter our demand to end the occupation in full and to establish a Palestinian, with east Jerusalem as its capital, on all of our national land."

The Palestinian president further stressed that the Palestinian Authority will not entertain any other solution or alternative.